By: Ashish Sinha, California State University, Dominguez Hills, and Gayatri Kathayat, Xi'an Jiaotong University Ancient Mesopotamia, the fabled land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the command and control center of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This ancient superpower was the largest empire of its time, lasting from 912 BC to 609 BC in what is now modern Iraq and Syria. At its height, the Assyrian state stretched from the Mediterranean and Egypt in the west to the Persian Gulf and western Iran in the east. Then, in an astonishing reversal of fortune, the Neo-Assyrian Empire plummeted from its zenith (circa 650 BC) to complete political collapse within the span of just a few ... Read More
Science
Professor Ashish Sinha Connects Changes in Climate to Collapse of Great Assyrian Empire
Research led by Ashish Sinha, a professor of earth sciences at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), connects major changes in climate with the collapse of the great Assyrian Empire. The findings were published in the November 13 issue of Science Advances, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Centered in northern Iraq and extending from western Iran to Egypt, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the largest empire of its time. It collapsed after more than two centuries of dominance with the fall of its capital, Nineveh (modern Mosul), in 612 BCE. In spite of a plethora of textual documentation in the form of cuneiform writings and archaeological ... Read More
Climate Change may be Behind Fall of Ancient Empire, Say Researchers
The Neo-Assyrian empire was a mighty superpower that dominated the near east for 300 years before its dramatic collapse. Now researchers say they have a novel theory for what was behind its rise and fall: climate change. The empire emerged in about 912BC and grew to stretch from the Mediterranean down to Egypt and out to the Persian Gulf. But shortly after the death of the king Ashurbanipal around 630BC, the empire began to crumble, with the grand city of Nineveh sacked in 612BC. By the end of the seventh century BC, the empire’s fall was complete. Now scientists say the reversal in the empire’s fortunes appears to coincide with a dramatic shift in its climate from wet to dry – a ... Read More
CSUDH Computer/Math Major Offered Two Aerospace Jobs at STEM Conference
Thar Soe may still have a semester to go before earning undergraduate degrees in both computer science and mathematics from California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), but he already has been offered jobs from two major aerospace companies. Soe received the job offers while attending the 31st Annual Great Minds in STEM (GMIS) Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC) on Sept. 25-29 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The conference offers thousands of students from across the United States a chance to access cutting-edge technologies, participate in professional development competitions, explore internships and graduate schools, and the opportunity to interview ... Read More
Professor Ashish Sinha Helps Discover the Holy Grail of Radiocarbon Dating
A groundbreaking recent discovery will enable scientists to accurately date objects from much earlier in Earth’s history than ever before. California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) Professor of Earth Sciences Ashish Sinha is among the team of international researchers who found what can be best described as the “Holy Grail” of radiocarbon dating: The team’s research was published in the December 2018 issue of Science magazine. The new study revealed how a pair of rare stalagmites inside the Hulu Cave, located near Nanjing, China, have unusually low levels of dead carbon, allowing an accurate carbon-14 (C-14) calibration—all the way to the limit of radiocarbon dating, about ... Read More
